UK students to compete in Microsoft Challenge Finals

Two teams from Scotland’s Abertay University are set to compete in the finals of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup today.

The Imagine Cup is a global student competition that invites teams of up to four people to design and create new technology projects.Team Terrabit and Radication Games are the two contenders from the University, which is the UK’s first national centre for excellence in computer games education.

Radication games have created a game called Sanitarium, that’s somewhat similar in concept to the board game Pandemic, in which the player must battle tuberculosis, having to treat individual patients with limited resources on a world map. The game uses mathematical models, developed by the University of St Andrews, that are powered by microsoft mobile and cloud technology which allows the player to get real-time updates about the condition of their patients in-game.

Team Terrabite, meanwhile, won the Imagine Cup Peoples’ Choice vote with their game Project Cyber. In Project Cyber, the player is charged with hacking into cyberspace and saving the world using Kinect technology to solve puzzles. The game’s story is told over three episodes and the core game is accompanied by a companion mobile app.

Professor Louis Natanson, Head of the School of Arts, Media and Computer Games at Abertay University, said: “Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is a very prestigious competition and to have two Abertay teams taking part in the UK finals is an incredible achievement.”

“Radication Games and Team Terrabite have both developed very original gaming ideas which creatively use different Microsoft technologies ranging from the Kinect motion sensor to integrated console and mobile experiences.

“My colleagues Dr Iain Donald and Dr Karen Meyer deserve credit too for the major role they’ve played in guiding these exceptional students to the UK finals. We wish them all the very best as they compete for a chance to represent the UK in the world finals.”

Winners of these national finals will have the opportunity to go on and compete in the world finals in Seattle in July 2015. The team that wins the world final will receive the grand prize of $50,000.

This news comes only a week after Abertay University was ranked in the top 25 universities to study game design, the only university in Europe to be placed on the annual Princeton review list.

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Chris Corbett

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Chris loves gaming, ginger beer and facial hair. Probably an unhealthy amount. He plays loads of different games (with ginger beer in hand) and loves writing about his experiences.